The class 'A' people were being held in a hangar partitioned off from everything else. There were waist-high concrete barriers with reflective red stripes outside.
They'd taken Selene's backpack and filed it away with a name tag on it, leaving her with just her tablet.
The quarantine area was still being setup as Selene walked in.
Bunks were being arranged in the corner. Portable restrooms were being wheeled inside. All the hangars seemed to be setup for similar purposes. Some had a big white plastic curtain draped over them.
"Hey new girl!" a man in his early twenties sat on a foldout chair off to the side with some other people around his age. "What'd they tell you?"
Selene tried to ignore him and walked over to one of the bunks being setup. Sleep first. She'd worry about everything else in the morning.
"Hey! I'm talking to you—you can't just ignore me!"
There was the sound of metal scrapping on the linoleum floor behind her as he stood up and began walking towards her. He cut her off.
"I'm Raymond. You?"
She gave the new threat a once over. Around her height; 5"10. But muscly. Black hair, green eyes. Tan like most people on the colony were.
"Tired."
"...They have us locked up like animals and you're tired. Don't you want to know what's going on?"
She looked over his shoulder at his little entourage. He just seemed like one of those over confident pricks who always make things more difficult so people just usually give him the right of way so he might be less annoying. Which only compounds the issue over time.
Straight out of the psyche books she reads. Selfish narcissist. She usually wasn't so judgmental but his vibes instantly rubbed her the wrong way. He was as if he carried a cloud of entitlement around with him.
"Puck is just trying to stop an epidemic before it starts... And I have no intention of joining your little quarantine posse, so if you don't mind?" Selene shoved her way past.
Bed. Now.
She hit the first bunk she saw. It was just a flimsy piece of moss green canvas wrapped around a few foldout bars. She'd be out in 3 days. It was Camden she was worried about. That alien better not of infected him with some alien disease.
It was making it tough to sleep, thinking about this. Then Selene heard a child cry. About Camdens age by the sound of it. Her eyes popped open. "W-where did they take my mom..?"
"She's a C class. Which means she can't stay with you. Can someone babysit this kid?" a doctor asked at the end of hangar. He'd practically dragged him in, a hand clamped around the boys wrist.
Raymond began to raise a hand.
"I'll watch him." Selene said. She was pacing a bit from her jog over. She really should work out more. Some cardio at least.
"What's your name?" he asked. "Selene. What's yours?" she didn't ask the doctor. But the little kid next to him who was wiping his face.
"Ja-Jared..."
"Come with me Jared, I think I saw them setting up a food stall. Are you hungry?", "I want my mom.." he sniffled. Selene's heart broke a little. She glared at the doctor. Who only seemed annoyed.
"Glare all you want, we got bigger things to worry about. You got this?" he pointed to the kid.
"Yeah."
The doctor turned and hurried through the checkpoint leaving the hangar.
"Bastard."
Selene turned to the sniffling child. "Let's get you something to eat, and I can tell you all about my brother Camden. I think you two would be friends."
Hopefully they treated class 'D' kids better than this... She'd try to text him before going to sleep.
"Come on Jared. I'll help you text your mom, they left you your pad right?", "Uh-huh..." she took his hand and guided him towards the food stalls.
They actually allowed Jared's mom to facetime him. At least they did that much. It helped him calm down a lot. And he wasn't the last one. Four other kids were entrusted to her. Over fifty others were spread out among some of the parents in class A.
She got them into bed and was one of the last to fall asleep.
The following day more showed up. Selene was saddled with 7 of them. Each one got progressively easier to look after. The kids were sympathetic to each other and became a bit of a unit of support. She helped them with contacting their parents and made sure they didn't get into trouble, but apart from that they just looked to her to entertain them.
The facility used the colonies ISP to limit the facetime calls the next day, so they only had fifteen minutes or so to talk. Her parents were worried about Camden. Well, her mother was. Dad was mostly quiet. His eyes were shifty. In a few days they'd get out, and they'd have more control legally about Camdens quarantine. That was the plan.
It was forbidden to facetime Class D people like Camden. Which broke her heart, but Selene had to appear strong. She couldn't cry now. Not with all these kids looking to her.
Meanwhile Raymond kept glancing at her creepily. She pretended not to notice as she glanced down at her text history with Camden.
[Selene] - How you doin' butt?
[Cammy] - they left me alone in this metal box.
[Selene] - Where are you?
[Cammy] - I dont know.
[Selene] - Are you hurt?
[Selene] - Are you okay?
[Selene] - Did they hurt you??
Camden was a slow typer damnit. The speech bubbles that denoted the fact he was typing were there for long moments before each message.
[Cammy] - They said they needed my blood and they made me drink this nasty stuff
[Selene] - Have you texted mom and dad?
[Cammy] - Ya.
She was almost shaking with the tablet in her hands.
"What's wrong?" Sarah- one of the kids she was looking after asked her.
"Nothing..." she looked at Sarah but the genuine worrying vibes told Selene she shouldn't lie.
"It's just.. My brother, around your guys age- he's in class D."
"My mom is class C..." Jared said. There you go Selene. Now you made them worry even more.
She cleared her throat; "Uh-yeah. It's scary... But we have to be brave for them. We'll be out in a couple more days and... We can visit them. And they'll get out not before long too."
Selene really began to regret her moms decision to come here. But in a way she didn't. Because then she wouldn't be able to look after kids like Jared. And they probably would've been rounded up eventually anyways like the others. There wasn't a massive reason to blame puck, it just sucked. It was weird.
"Hey guys, I'll be right back. I'm going to ask the guards something."
There were a few guards that stood at different spots at all times around the hangar. She approached one now.
"Stay back." they said, raising a hand. Selene stopped.
"I-I was just wondering if I could have my sketchbook? That's probably fine, right? I mean if we can have our tablets."
The enforcer just stood there for a moment. Their shiny glass visor hinted at none of their emotions, but Selene sensed some degree of empathy anyways. She was always good at reading people. Understanding their overall vibe. She wasn't really sure how she did it. Body language, maybe?
"Why?" they asked.
"I was going to show the kids my drawings... Might help get their minds off everything."
"You won't be getting any pencils or anything."
What was this, prison rules? What'd they expect her to do?
"That's fine."
"I'll send for it. Name?"
"Selene Carrington."
"Got it. I'll let you know."
"Thanks."
"Mmhmm." they waved her off after that.
It wasn't long until she had her drawing book in her hands. She opened it up and the kids surrounded her on the bunk.
"What's that?" a boy about 13 asked. Berrel.
"Cerberus. He's a three headed dog that guards the entrance to hell."
"Cool." he said.
Selene flipped the page; "This one is a flower with legs smoking a cigar and carrying a detonator. Not sure I was doing with that one."
"It looks silly!" Sarah laughed.
"Can I look?" Anna asked. She was Berrels age.
"Uhm... Sure. Just be careful with the pages. They can rip easy." she handed them the booklet and they all surrounded her.
They proceeded to make 'ooh' and 'aah' reactions to the different drawings.
"Who's she?" one of them asked. Some of the boys in their preteens were especially interested in that one. It was a semi-realistic portrait of a woman wearing flimsy silver armor that showed lots of cleavage and midriff. She had long pointed ears and ephemeral blue eyes. Silver hair flowing down her shoulders like rivers. She was looking towards a sunrise.
"That's Galadriel. She's badass. She's from some old story I liked."
"What story?" Isaac asked. The youngest one of the bunch, around 7.
Selene yawned: "A long one."
They kept flipping through the pages.
"H-hey! Careful with that." she warned them.
They laughed and talked about the images in the book. And kept asking Selene about them. She'd answer lazily and eventually drifted to sleep on the bunk she leaned against.
She was stirred awake.
"Stop it!", "Give it- give it back!" kids were fighting over the booklet it sounded like.
"I just want to see it for a second, relax!"
That voice caused Selene to lurch upwards.
Raymond was surrounded with his posse and was showing them her drawings. Some of them laughed at the things they saw.
"She draws a lot of hotties, is she a lesbo or something?" one of them asked.
It was like highschool all over again. She bounced off the bunk and stomped over to them.
"Hey! Drop it!" she shouted as if she caught Tywin in the garbage again. Raymond looked up at her from the book and smirked. "Is this the kind of shit you're into? You know what—that explains a lot." he turned the book to face her.
It was a picture of a character from a action/drama. A muscular woman carried a massive greatsword on hear shoulders and had spartan-era armor on. Less revealing than usual, but Selene guessed that's not the part he took issue with.
Raymond began showing the others in his troop.
"There are guys in there too.."
"Ha, like two. And they're twinks with bows."
"Swann isn't a twink—his arms are thicker than yours. Besides who cares? What are you five? Give it here."
She reached for the booklet but only managed to grab half of it as Raymond pulled away. They both held it in a gentle game of tug-of-war.
"Let. Go. Yo, enforcers!" she called out towards the guards at the mouth of the hangar.
They shifted uneasily. But haven't decided to intervene yet.
"Tssk... Why do you care? Just leave us alone." she said through gritted teeth.
Raymond stopped smiling then.
"Cause stuck-up bimbos like you need to learn their place."
God, this guy definitely wasn't handling adulthood well.
"Okay. Great. Lesson learned. Now let go." she sneered at him and gave a light tug. He resisted. "Please?"
"Hmmm... Doesn't sound genuine." he reached forward with his free hand and tore a fist full of pages out and crumpled them up before dropping them on the ground. That surprised her.
"No!" Selene screamed.
He let go of his half of the book which dangled at Selene's side as she saw the pages. Her eyes watered. The confusion on her face was obvious regardless of a persons ability to pick up on vibes.
"Jesus, are you fucking crying? Grow up."
Selene pointed a shaky finger at the papers on the floor.
"That... Took.. HUNDREDS OF HOURS!" she blew up at him. Cussing him out and calling him all sorts of impolite things.
At this point the attention of the entire hangar was on them. And some of his troop clearly began to feel uncomfortable. Not managing to make eye contact with her.
A kid stepped forward meekly. Jett, about 10 years old. He picked up a page and uncrumpled it. "Look.. It's still fine Selene..." it was half the picture.
The other kids scooped up the different pages and unfurled them.
Raymond had a shit eating grin on his face. Selene wanted to knock his teeth out. But she'd guess then the enforcers would actually do their fucking job.
'I won't cry. I refuse to give him the validation.' she repeated inwardly to herself like a mantra.
She remembered a conversation with her dad years ago when something like this happened. He'd dried her tears and hugged her then.
"Some people suck kiddo. The only thing we can do is survive them. Don't let them drag you down to their level." He said.
"B-but they broke it! And now I have to start over! Again!" her face red and cheeks wet. Mad at the world. She remembered that feeling now.
He was mad too, he always had anger problems. But for as quick he was to anger—he always controlled it well. No matter how intense his vibe got. He took a shaky breath.
"People get tired of their shit. Some people like to take things from others because they can't make anything themselves. Never hate these people Sel. Don't waste the energy on it. People will notice. Believe me. It took your mother to teach me better. I wasted so many years on..", he clenched his fists then. "Nothing at all. It's just a pointless circle of beef and revenge. Over and over, nothing ever changes. The best solution is to just... Let go." he unclenched his hands.
Selene took a deep breath.
"Whatever. I don't care. I'll draw them again. Come on kids, I'll tell you about Galadriel."
She led the solemn group of children away from Raymonds. Who were incredibly awkward now. He turned towards them.
"What?" he asked them.
They just walked back to their chairs. And the murmurs of different conversations finally began to fill the hangar. Selene didn't pay attention, but the general vibe was that the hangar was on her side. Even the lazy ass enforcers.
He probably felt some confusing feelings towards her and acted out because of it. But that's not her problem. That's something you're supposed to figure out in the third grade. And it wasn't her job to help stunted adults mature.
She'd erase it from her mind and focus on what matters. Camden and the other kids.
"So Galadriel was the leader of these people called elves." as she told them the story of Galadriel they all smoothed out the drawings and put them back in her book. "They're like us, and came in all sorts of colors and shapes. But they were elegant. Intune with nature..."
The children fell asleep early that day. She was exhausted too and just as her eyes began to sleep her tablet received a message. A tiny bird chirp came from her tablet just for a second.
She rubbed her eyes and picked it up.
[Dad] - u up?
He'd gotten past the ISP restrictions on texts? There were supposed to be specific times they could text each other.
[Selene] - What? It's late as hell.
[Dad] - Listen, puck is up to something. They know more about these things than they're letting on.
[Selene] - Here you go about puck again. Didn't you and mom have some kind of promise to let that kind of thing go?
[Dad] - She was right back then. We agreed to move to the outer rim and leave all that in the past. But now puck is on my doorstep. And you're in danger. Especially Camden.
Selene's breath hitched. Camden was in isolated quarantine. Alone, scared. But that doesn't mean pucks reaction to this isn't warranted. It was probably for the best. After no response her dad sent another message.
[Dad] - I did some digging.
[Dad] - I can't tell your mom, she wouldn't understand. Might have an emotional response that gets us caught. But you've always been strong that way. I need you to do something.
[Selene] - You're not making any sense.
[Dad] - Just do what I say. It'll make sense later. I have a picture, here.
An image of a container with a glass window appeared. It was smeared with brown viscera. They looked like eggs.
[Selene] - What the hell is that?
[Dad] - Not sure yet. But it means they're not telling us the full story at least. Here's the plan: security in class A is the most relaxed. I need you to get more evidence. So that Endolen enforcers will be on our side.
[Selene] - You want me to break out? Like, right now??
[Dad] - Yes. By tomorrow it'll be too late. They'll start cycling out the A class then.